Life with kids, dogs, cats, bunnies, sheep and fish is many things but never boring.
"Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear,the strength so strong mere force is feebleness, the truth more first than sun, more last than star."

Monday, May 21, 2007

Photos from Beloka Kelpie stud

So here are some of the pics of Hope at Beloka Kelpie stud this weekend where we did a workshop to get her started.I think she looks rather stylish working the sheep here. (Cuz that's the most important thing you know! Haha!) Here they are nearly at the gait, waiting for it to be swung open.Going out to get around the sheep.Sticky sheep on a fence corner...Sheep: Nuh uh. I'm not moving. Yer a scrawny 8 month old pup and ya can't make me!Hope: Wanna bet sheep? (Hm. Maybe Paul had a thing when he said I ought to bark to move the sheep instead of just beaming the message into their heads!)Now this being a Kelpie stud, backing is obviously part and parcel. While Paul reckons Hope will probably be okay with backing as she didn't seem fussed when we started them on it, I reckon this is Aussie-style backing!

Someone thought the ducks looked like fun, even if they were the weirdest sheep she'd ever seen. (Who knew sheep came with wings?!?)Her first go on the ducks, actually keeping a bit of distance and not too much pressure for parts of it, though at a part she razzed them a bit at the start thinking they were the wild ducks she buzzes off the dam at home. Once she figured out they were weird-sheep instead of balls-that-throw-themselves-into-the-air she did a nice bit of work though.Hey look, they're not scattering!And she can take turn commands, at least by gesture if not word and whistle.First one way and then the other.And back to sheep... we did cattle as well but no pics of that as Nic left my camera at Toora! (Yes, we got it back.)Hot pursuit of the rouge sheep.Okay this is a trio of photos. This one (1) shows the main bunch together and one of them deciding it's going to be going elsewhere. It's intending to come back past Hope.#2 Hope sees it and moves to counter. "Uh uh sheep, wrong way!"#3 And back with the group. This was the little test at the end of the day. We had a series of small yards we had to move the sheep from one end of the first to the gate, open the gate, get them through, across the second yard, open the gate, move them through, across the third yard, open the gate, get them through and back into the first yard through the front gate. It's a mini-taste of practical work or what you'd have to do at yard dog trials and was interesting and fun if a bit of a comedy considering how green both dog and handler were! LOL A couple of the other people with more experienced dogs did a real pretty job of it though!Laurent and I having a look at one of the calves. La is saying, "Mum, cow! Mooooo-ddaaauugghhh!" (Last bit is him immitating a dinosaur. Apparently it's a dino-cow in his mind.)Part of the land there. Nic took Laurent and climbed the hill with him. The black specks are cows. The white specks are sheep. Nic is the skinnier black spect just above the top of the treeline.Hope, zooming about. Even after all that she's still full of energy!But her most important job of all, taking her boy around on walkies!

I love reading about your dog training and the new house. It all sounds so exciting!I would love to pick your brain about basic dog training because we don't know what we are going to do about our chase-anything-that-moves blue heeler when we move to our unfenced house.